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Longmont City Council to consider request for additional area highway funding

Staff says Diagonal Highway improvements could cost $230M to more than $600M

By John Fryar

Staff Writer

Posted:
02/05/2018 07:29:13 PM MST

Updated:
02/05/2018 07:29:35 PM MST

If you go

What: Longmont City Council study session

When: 7 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Civic Center council chambers, 350 Kimbark St., Longmont

Longmont may join other area local governments in urging the Colorado Department of Transportation to refine its statewide potential projects list to earmark any additional available funds for multimodal improvements to several highway corridors in Boulder and Broomfield counties.

The estimated total cost of those Diagonal Highway improvements could range from $230 million to more than $600 million, according to information the city staff provided to Longmont's City Council.

However, the Colorado Department of Transportation's current draft update of its statewide projects list includes only $120 million for that Diagonal Highway work, according to the U.S. 36 Mayors and Commissioners Coalition, a local governments' group to which Longmont belongs.

At Tuesday night's study session, the City Council is to consider confirming Longmont's participation in sending CDOT a letter from the coalition to urge that the state transportation agency identify additional project funding — if increased money becomes available through the Legislature or a possible statewide ballot question.

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Other members of the coalition are Boulder, Boulder County, Erie, Lafayette, Louisville, Superior, Broomfield, Adams County and Westminster. Shawn Lewis, Longmont assistant city manager, said Monday that all but Longmont and Westminster have signed off on the letter.

"We urge you to identify additional project funding in coordination with northwest area local governments. In general, we support funding for regional arterial Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), commuter bikeways, managed/express lanes and other multimodal transportation improvements," the coalition members write in the draft letter up for Longmont City Council review.

University of Colorado senior Breton McNamara boards a Boulder-bound RTD BOLT bus at the Niwot stop along the Diagonal Highway on Monday. McNamara said he uses the bus service five times a week. (Lewis Geyer / Staff Photographer)

The coalition says in its draft letter that if the Legislature or a ballot initiative's proponents ask Colorado voters for a transportation funding tax hike, "we believe our northwest area voters will require a greater local return on their tax dollars and assurance that there is sufficient funding to timely complete projects, if we expect them to support a tax increase for transportation."

The letter to CDOT would say that the area's voters "do not want to be short-changed again" — something the letter said happened with the voter-approved Regional Transportation District FasTracks sales-tax hike that hasn't yet provided promised passenger rail service between Denver and Longmont and may not complete that Northwest Rail project until 2040 or later.

The coalition has identified a number of other multimodal transportation improvement projects for updated CDOT funding, if additional money becomes available — most of which would include a combination of work needed for Bus Rapid Transit, commuter bikeways and managed or express lanes.

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